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Art Gallery NSW

How Art Gallery NSW learns about their audience

overview

The leading public gallery in Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales took a customer-centric approach to solve one of its biggest-ever challenges.

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Fast Facts

Industry:

Non-Profit

Role:

Customer Experience

Insights professionals

Use case:

Customer experience

Marketing effectiveness

Business Outcome:

Improve customer satisfaction

De-risk decisions

Business Challenge

Met by an increasingly competitive cultural landscape and evolving audience expectations, the Art Gallery of New South Wales was under pressure to improve public access and the overall gallery experiences.

Solution

The institution’s leaders, in an effort to make the gallery more customer-centric and gather continuous feedback on marketing campaigns and visitor experiences, launched Gallery Insider, an insight community of more than 2,000 gallery members and visitors.

Within six months, Gallery Insider changed how strategic decisions are made across the organization. For example, community members helped develop marketing messaging for a major travelling exhibition of “The Greats’ masterpieces. The gallery learned from community members that campaign advertising would be more appealing if it included reviews from respected critics. While past marketing campaigns would draw 2 percent of total visitors to an exhibit, the new campaign, informed by customer feedback, drove 33 percent—far exceeding sales targets.

To overcome an unpleasant visitor experience created by a renovation, the gallery ran a test among insight community members to see how it could resolve issues and improve signage, communication and staff assistance. Community members navigated the gallery space and, using their smartphones, answered survey questions in-the-moment. Feedback showed where navigation or communication was unclear—and where experience could be improved.

The gallery’s leaders now have reliable feedback from a known group, and don’t need to rely on gut instinct or base decisions on dated information. Individuals across the organization are now closer than they’ve ever been to audience insight and can bring this intelligence into every stage of the planning process. For example, audience insight preceded strategy and creative planning for an exhibition of nudes from the Tate collection. Audience members gave feedback on which themes and creative messaging resonated with them, helping shape the end experience.

Our insight community is fundamental to helping the gallery move from a product- to audience-focused organization. In a fast-paced, technology driven and self-curated world, we needed this competitive edge.

-Natasha Henry, Head of Marketing, Art Gallery NSW

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